Facebook’s New Iowa Data Center To Be “Among the Most Advanced of Its Kind”

Facebook has officially announced a brand new data center in Altoona, Iowa, which they say will be among the “most advanced and energy efficient facilities of its kind” when it’s completed.

The data center will be built with the same Open Compute Project server designs and outdoor-air cooling system of Facebook’s other data centers, but the company says that improvements to the building design and networking architecture will make Altoona’s center stand out in the crowd.

“We’re excited to have found a new home in Iowa, which has an abundance of wind-generated power and is home to a great talent pool that will help build and operate the facility. We plan to break ground this summer and expect to begin serving user traffic in 2014,” says Facebook’s Jay Parikh. “We’re especially appreciative of all the partners who helped make this project happen. Facebook’s mission is to connect the world. Thanks to Iowa, we’re building the global infrastructure to bring the next billion people online. We can’t wait to get started.”

Facebook says that they will break ground this summer and they hope the center will be ready to go in 2014.

Reports of the new data center first hit the web last weekend, with the Des Moines Register saying that the social media giant was behind “the most technologically advanced data center in the world.” That reports suggests that the facility will cost upwards of $1.5 billion.

Altoona, Iowa rests inside the West Des Moines Metropolitan area, and at last census had a population of just shy of 16,000 people. The Altoona data center will be Facebook’s 4th, and 3rd in the United States. Facebook currently has data centers in Prineville, Oregon; Forest City, North Carolina; and Luleå, Sweden.

“Our goal is not just to deliver you a fast, reliable experience on Facebook every day – we also want to help make connectivity a universal opportunity. Our data centers are essential for making that happen,” says Parikh.